BLACK!

Gotcha! No, it is not what you are thinking about!This is not about Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black, much as I would like it to be. But since the movie is still on my “MUST WATCH” list, this one’s going to prove 99 per cent of you, who came here expecting it, wrong.But then, it’s not merely a red herring. This is also about movies, it is also about Black- my abiding passion for the last decade or so. A genre of literature and movies that has consumed me rapaciously for five years and warmly for the next five: Black American history. As much as The Third Reich has attracted and kept my attention over the same period.I have been fascinated by the history of the black movement, right from its origins in Africa, through the slave boats onto the cotton fields of America, the Civil War, Ku Klux Klan, Malcolm X, modern Black messiahs, blues and jazz…There are popular movies chronicling each aspect of this journey, like Gone with the Wind, Amistad, even Roots, all great works, but the works of Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Tennessee Williams, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have kept me awake several nights. It was a bad idea to start listing names, because I cannot really stop. I stop now, because the purpose of this post has not yet been served. It will now be served…